How to calculate GHG emissions in the food industry.
This text will help you understand how to get started with calculating the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions your agri-food company produces.
We will walk you through the 3-step process:
Set your reduction target.
Start your GHG inventory.
Acquire a reliable platform for gathering Scope 3 data.
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So, why should your company calculate emissions in the first place?
Simply put; knowing and reducing your climate impact has become business-critical due to:
Global climate targets.
EU’s climate targets and Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive.
Your own sustainability commitments.
Brand and stakeholder management.
Have a look at our quick-read article to understand why.
1. Set your GHG emission reduction target.
If your organization hasn’t yet set a GHG emission reduction target, committing to one is a smart first step.
Setting and communicating a reduction target provides your company internal cohesion and a clear long-term trajectory.
Sharing it publicly is one of the best ways to communicate your organization's attention to climate change mitigation providing credibility, transparency and accountability to your customers and stakeholders.
There are many options for setting a reduction target, however, the global standard is to follow Science Based Targets Initiative’s guidelines.
Their guidelines define and promote best practices in target setting and provide a clearly-defined pathway for companies to reduce their emissions in a way that is aligned with global climate goals. As the name suggests, the scientific community continuously reviews SBTi’s guidelines.
SBTi has prepared general target-setting guidelines as well as industry-specific guidelines.
Companies in the agri-food industry should follow their general guidance, depending on the business size, and ensure they comply with SBTi’s food-industry-specific guidance: Forest, Land and Agriculture Guidance (FLAG).
The process for target-setting depends on the size of the business. If the company has less than 500 employees, it is considered an SME. Companies with more than 500 employees classify as corporates.
For corporates, SBTi provides one compulsory target and one optional target:
1. Compulsory: Near-future reduction target
Focuses on what your company will do now, and over the next 5-10 years, to reduce emissions.
2. Optional, but recommended: Net-zero reduction target
This target aims for the amount of greenhouse gas you produce to eventually equal the amount you remove from the atmosphere.
Setting your target includes defining your base year, and calculating the baseline emissions, which will become the reference point for measuring progress toward your target.
Note that regardless of the target you’ve set, the quality of your emission data will be crucial, both for calculating the baseline emissions and for reporting your progress.
This can be a concern, especially considering your Scope 3 emissions (emissions produced upstream in your supply chain by your suppliers), which typically represent >70% of all emissions of an agri-food company, and are notably difficult to measure at scale.
We will dig deeper into this issue in the following chapters.
2. Start your greenhouse gas inventory.
After committing to a reduction target, you should start calculating your emissions and building your greenhouse gas inventory.
A GHG inventory includes all your emission sources and their associated emissions, quantified using standardized methods.
The process begins by choosing a standard that defines the boundaries of your emissions (Scopes 1-3) and quantification methods for calculating them.
The global standard for creating a GHG inventory is Greenhouse Gas Protocol. Their Land Sector and Removals Guidance, which will be published later in 2023, will give specific guidance for agri-food companies for whom land use creates a significant portion of emissions.
Earlier we touched upon Scope 3 emissions: emissions produced by your suppliers that form the most considerable portion of the emissions for any agri-food company, and thus also have the most reduction potential.
Calculating them precisely will be critical in creating a legitimate GHG inventory, but this is easier said than done.
The Scope 3 emission data you’ll need from your suppliers, also known as primary data, has high variation, as it is highly dependent on, for example, the soil health and farming practices of each individual farm and field.
Gathering it can be challenging; current methods, such as manual surveys sent to growers, are time-consuming for the growers and often result in poor data that can’t be verified.
Yet, Greenhouse Gas Protocol and other GHG inventory standards require companies to gather and report primary data that relates to specific activities carried out by the company’s suppliers.
To succeed with this, you will need a climate performance platform that can support you in gathering this primary data systematically, reliably, and at scale.
3. Acquire a reliable platform for gathering Scope 3 data.
Improvin’ provides a climate performance platform that food brands, processors and mills use to gather supplier-specific primary data and calculate and report their Scope 3 emissions.
With the help of advanced technology, our platform automatically identifies a number of farming and soil management practices and collects this data across crops, geographies and countries.
Additionally, the platform leverages a wide precision-ag partner network and third-party sources to identify and model the impact of the practices that have taken place at the growers’ premises. The datasets are confirmed and completed by the growers.
This results in transparent and verified Scope 3 emission calculations traced down to land-management units.
The infrastructure is built to comply with the requirements of the most used reduction target standards, such as Science Based Targets Initiative, and GHG inventory standards, such as Greenhouse Gas Protocol, resulting in climate-compliant dataready to be reported.
Recap: 3 steps for calculating your foodprint.
These are the three steps for getting started with calculating the climate impact of your food company:
1. Set a reduction target.
Best practice: Use Science Based Target Initiative’s framework.
Look into their food-industry-specific FLAG guidance.
2. Start your GHG inventory.
Best practice: Follow Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s standards.
Their Land Sector and Removals Guidance for the food industry is currently a draft - the final version will be released soon.
3. Acquire a reliable system for gathering Scope 3 data.
You’ll need to base your Scope 3 calculations on primary data.
Gathering it at scale will be challenging: the data has high variation.
A Climate Performance Platform, such as the one provided by Improvin’, helps you to gather primary data at scale and provides you with verified Scope 3 emission calculations that comply with SBTi’s and GHG Protocol’s requirements.
Get in touch with us to hear more about how our platform can help your company.
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